


The Following Thunder

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29137464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: Bring down the storm.An ongoing story, following the Storm Warriors as they flee the destruction of Cadia, their Chapter - and oaths - shattered. Will the stalwart Storm Warriors persist in the wake of such monumental defeat, confronting and overcoming the shadowed nature of all Astartes? Or will they succumb to the brutal pragmatism exemplified by the worst of their kind? See them grapple with both future and past on the frontier world of Turas, alongside - and against - one of the most reviled Chapters of the Imperium.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Void war was often likened to regicide by armchair admirals and after-action analysts.

Vessels deployed on a flat, stately board. Moves and counter-moves, creeping towards and breaking down grand strategies. Two commanders sacrificing ships and warriors to build their position within a system. Propaganda vids and memorial picts always portrayed the bridge of an Imperial vessel as a bastion of absolute control, quiet as a chapel. A web of order centred around a stoic, silent captain.

Lieutenant Adras had little interest in Imperial pastiche. He had even less in how the common man believed a voidship should be run.

‘Confirm that damn clipper!’ he roared from the command throne, pounding a grey gauntlet on the reinforced sidebar. It crumpled slightly. ‘Batteries three through five to cycle shells! What’s the latest from fleet?’

A chorus of assent rose from the gunnery officers, hands dancing on consoles and orders passing through vox-sets. The _Vigilance_ shuddered as macrocannon batteries volleyed fire across the void. The sustained barrage terminated a fast-attack vessel bearing an eight-pointed star. Crippled by a previous attack and left drifting, the Black Legion clipper had been trying to turn what remained of its guns towards the battle.

Little threat there, but Adras had not lived to serve the Imperium for two centuries by taking chances. Even a clipper could wound an Imperial warship if their void shields failed. For all that they were the enemy, the Black Legion did not lack for courage or skill at arms.

‘No response from _Sirius_ , lord!’ called the communications officer, her mien harried. ‘We still have transports coming cross-system, into the Archenemy deployment. Chatter is thinning - they’ll have their guns on us again soon.’

Adras shook his head. Time bought in Militarum lives, and unknowing ones at that. The _Sirius_ \- battle-barge of the Storm Warriors, his proud Chapter - had screened a Warp jump from the evacuated ruins of Cadia to a fall-back system. Black Legion outrunners had been on their heels almost immediately. The void predators lacked the muscle to bring down an Adeptus Astartes warship. But they reaped a terrible toll on the wallowing hulks that transported Astra Militarum regiments across the stars.

The Lieutenant longed to turn his strike cruiser back, to smash and scatter the Archenemy fleet elements. But to do so would expose his vessel, carrying the remnants of Fourth Company, to sure destruction. Even now, opposing capital ship moved through the Warp towards them. To charge under their fire would be suicide.

‘See if you can raise _Ilyan_ ’, Adras growled, studying the ever-changing hololith. The number of ships within the Storm Warrior’s protection was small, but growing. ‘They may have better luck cutting through this interference.’

‘Aye, lord.’

‘Batteries cycled and ready, lord!’ reported the chief gunnery officer. ‘We’ve no shortage of targets!’

Adras was on his feet now, blood truly up. A Space Marine’s journey through the ranks of his Chapter exposed him to a bevy of doctrines - he was expected to master them, to become a true paragon of war. For all that, some resonated with particular callings more strongly than others. Adras would have remained a Devastator for eternity, had his experience and tactical acumen not earmarked him for a leadership role.

Even in the command throne of a warship, he still felt that kinship in his soul. Heavy weapons were simply in his blood. He lived a life of kill-zones, fields of vision - and overwhelming firepower.

‘At will, by the Emperor!’ Adras bellowed. ‘Send them all screaming back to the Warp!’

 _Vigilance_ was not a fast ship. It had not been built to engage in dizzying manoeuvers or daring evasion. The outrunners could, quite literally, fly rings around it. None of that mattered. Space was not the calm, orderly, flat plane of a regicide board. It was not a battle of open fields, it was a war of angles, and the _Vigilance_ ’s guns were dialled into the attack runs of Archenemy vessels before they even began them.

The Black Legion vessels charging down the fleeing transports disappeared in a wake of explosions. Broadside after broadside rippled from the _Vigilance_ , tearing apart burning hulks, leaving nothing but dispersing trails of twisted metal.

Those Archenemy vessels that saw the fate of their fellows broke from their pursuit. Desperate evasive action followed.

Adras grinned as those, too, were met with withering macrocannon fire - though not from his guns.

Many Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes would have been long gone from this system. Even those that counted themselves as brave and honourable would weigh the risk of remaining, of shepherding the slothful Militarum vessels and break for the Warp. There was wisdom in that consideration. The Space Marines and their equipment were far more difficult to replace than the endless churn of weapons and those to wield them that the Imperium produced. None would condemn them for making that choice - except those they left behind, and even then, not for long.

‘My compliments to Captain Sovak,’ Adras nodded to the communications officer. ‘Good work raising _Ilyan_. Do they have contact with _Sirius_ and Chapter Master Calan?’

Breaking through the oceans of interference that surrounded any pitched void battle was no simple feat. The officer glowed with deserved pride at the compliment. Rather than interfere with the bridge crew’s concentration or her lord’s processing of battle, she had shunted the gunnery and positional data across as soon as the link had been established.

The _Ilyan_ \- a strike cruiser of similar heft to the _Vigilance_ \- had immediately adjusted her position to cover the lanes of retreat out of her sister ship’s broadside. The overlapping fire had been ruinous. No Black Legion vessel dared attempt another approach. They contented themselves with the slaughter of Imperial transports across the system, beyond the reach of immediate retribution.

Breathing room. What stragglers remained were safe under the guns of the Storm Warriors - for the moment.

‘We have revised orders, Adras,’ the crackling voice of Captain Sovak answered the question from the command throne’s speaker, rather than the communications officer herself. The Lieutenant nodded again in approval - she’d anticipated and acted accordingly. ‘Astropathic sendings state that the bulk of this Black Crusade has continued towards Ultramar rather than breaking the Cadian Gate proper.’

‘Can they be trusted?’ Adras replied with a frown. ‘The Rift damn near killed my astropaths. They’re in no condition to send or receive anything.’

‘The source is Ultramar itself. If any choir can cut across this darkness, it’s theirs.’

‘Good news at last. We can expect reinforcements from the Ultramarines, then?’

‘Not quite, Lieutenant. They’re relaying directives to Calan.’

Adras snorted, amused. ‘Directives? I know they’ve got an ego, but we’ll not be ordered about, not even by Calgar himself.’

‘These come from a higher power than Marneus Calgar. They say…’ A moment of silence, interspersed by the crackle of interference across the vox. Sovak was a veteran, a warrior of esteem, considered by many to be the prime successor of the Chapter Master when his time came. Yet even he grappled with the import of the words he would speak. ‘They say the Primarch has returned, Adras. Roboute Guilliman himself. Revived in this dark hour, he shattered the first assault on Macragge itself and even now makes all haste to Terra. He has commanded those who survived Cadia to reinforce the outlying systems. To make them ready to defend against invasion, while he musters the Imperium’s strength to strike back. We stall the Black Legion here, and their Crusade will wither on the vine.’

‘Throne,’ Adras breathed, shocked. ‘The strategy is sound, but… Guilliman himself?’

‘I find it hard to countenance, yet why would there be any deceit?’

‘The Primarch.’

‘Aye, Adras.’

‘I’ve read his book, you know.’

A scratchy chuckle. ‘Aye. _Sirius_ will hold a blocking position, along with _Tempest’s Reach_. You’ll take a number of Militarum transports under your wing to the Turas system. They’re being designated and their commanders informed now.’

Seating himself again at the command throne, Adras watched as data spooled through the hololithic display. Titles and information of the Imperial vessels that would depend on him and the _Vigilance_ for the foreseeable future. He felt a strange ache in his hearts. The Storm Warriors had come to Cadia in their full strength, the Chapter arranged for war in a way never before seen in their history. Though they had taken casualties and failed to hold the world, it had set a fierce fire within him. To operate with all his brothers, their serfs and armsmen had felt… right.

Now that fellowship was being broken, each set to their own task and objectives once more.

‘Any word of Captain Unta?’ Adras asked though he did not expect to like the answer. Unta was the leader of Fourth Company but had vanished in fierce fighting through the mazelike Cadian _kasr_. None had seen him since.

‘No word,’ came Sovak’s reply. ‘We fear he and his legacy perished with Cadia.’

Adras did not ask the question aloud. It did not need to be. ‘Emperor rest him. We have the deployment data now. My staff are pulling the transports into formation now. Anything else, Sovak?’

‘We’ll be back, brother.’ The heat in the Captain’s voice penetrated the static. ‘Abaddon had to break the planet rather than face us blade-to-blade. We have their measure, all those Warp-spawned traitors and bastards. We’ve seen their faces. They are no legend, no myth, no monster out in the dark. We’ve fought them now. We’ve made them bleed. We’ll leave this system full of their shattered ships, we’ll break them on the Gate worlds, then we’ll run them right back into the Eye. Mark me, brother. I swear it.’

‘I hear your oath, brother-Captain,’ Adras replied formally. He raised a gauntlet to the upright sword on his pauldron, flanked by two fierce bolts of lightning. ‘Bring down the storm.’

The vox-link closed, and Adras' attention turned to organising his motley flock for Warp translation.


	2. Chapter 2

Adras paid no notice to the spartan furnishings. He registered the small meditation cell’s temperature only because his armour tracked such trivia. The Emperor’s Angels had no need for human comforts, for they had been purged of all humanity’s weakness. They did not feel fear, nor pain. Searing heat or chilling cold did not impact them. Their only attachments were to Chapter and Emperor; their only love was that of duty.

No personal items were displayed. The Storm Warriors took many trophies and treasures from the far edges of the Imperium. Some were released to the Astra Militarum, others to scholarly bodies, select items to the secretive Inquisition. Fewer still remained to find a place in the meeting halls and armouries of the Chapter’s warships. None of that wealth was ever kept for individual use - there would be no show of ostentatiousness or honour-totems in a battle-brother’s sanctum.

Here - too close to a power junction, in quarters sparse enough to make an ascetic blush, indistinguishable from any other on board the Vigilance - was the one place an Astartes could call their own. Perfectly clean. Immaculately tidy. Sterile, with no trace of the owner or all the owners it once had.

Still Adras could not shake the feeling that he was a trespasser. A sinner walking on hallowed ground.

‘A vulture,’ suggested a deep, unkind voice from behind him, beyond the cell. ‘Beak red with carrion.’

‘Chaplain Bannock,’ Adras replied as he turned to face the black, skull-faced visage of Fourth Company’s grim overseer. ‘You’ve always had a talent for metaphor.’

The Chaplain did not move from the exit, his armoured frame blocking it as surely as a bulkhead. ‘And you have always disappointed me, Adras. Why are you here? Should you not be hiding on the bridge?’

‘Hiding?’

‘As you hid in orbit while Cadia died.’

‘Running that blockade was suicide. The planet was done. You didn’t see what I saw, Bannock - the Black Legion had every approach vector covered for their own evacuation. If there had been any chance - any - of getting a Thunderhawk to Captain Unta, I would have piloted it myself.’ Adras shook his head but did not look away from the daunting Chaplain. ‘At least I’d have had fewer questions to answer if I died in the attempt.’

‘Is it better to live with this dishonour?’

‘Dishonour?’ The Lieutenant snorted. ‘You were too long away with the Black Templars. They have the men and material to waste on honour. We don’t.’

Bannock took a step forward, gauntlet dropping to the bloodied crozius at his hip. Rents and battle-damage were fresh on his plate - a Chaplain would never allow his own hurts to be tended while a battle-brother suffered. If the Astartes were alive, then they could fight. ‘Dishonour,’ the word hissed from Bannock’s vox-grille. ‘You are swathed in it, Adras. You have become used to that corrupting touch. Perhaps you do not see it, but your brothers are all too aware. They will never yield to you.’

‘I do not expect them to yield.’ Adras’ breastplate clattered into the Chaplain’s, a grey stormfront meeting black clouds, heart to heart. The effect was ruined slightly by the Lieutenant being forced to tilt his head slightly to meet the taller Marine’s gaze. ‘I expect them to obey. I expect you to impress that upon them, as is your duty. Or would you prefer to trim your armour with gold and kneel to the Despoiler?’

‘You dare?’ The crozius crackled to life. ‘You unbloodied curr, standing in a warrior’s grave and proclaiming yourself his heir? All you carry is rank. No experience. No courage.’

‘If not me, then who? You?’

A pause. ‘Yes. If I must, until we are relieved. There is precedent.’

‘It won’t work.’ Adras stepped back, painfully aware of the bulkhead at his back. There was no room in the cell to move, and he carried no weapon of his own against the Chaplain’s powered maul. If mutiny was in the offing, then he was giving up his only advantage. ‘Any weakness, and we lose the lot. Fourth Company, the serfs, the Guard - all of them.’

‘Explain.’

‘Don’t you see it? We’re shaken, Bannock. We’re not supposed to lose.’ A bitter laugh. ‘We’re the Adeptus Astartes. The Emperor’s own angels. And Abaddon overmatched us. That’s reality. We weren’t ready for him, and we paid for it. Look at yourself, brother, look at what you’re considering, and tell me what I say isn’t true.’

The hum of the crozius faded, though the Chaplain did not retreat. ‘We are stronger than you credit.’

‘Perhaps. But are the Astra Militarum? Are the Cadians who saw their planet destroyed? The fresh Navy captains piloting gang-pressed transports?’

‘What consideration do these mortals deserve? They ran from their world rather than stand and fight. If they rebel, we will crush-’ Bannock halted, mid-sentence, as long years of dutiful service finally overcame the combat stims and vengeful fury that had been driving him. ‘Throne,’ the Chaplain swore softly. ‘And that would be the end.’

‘Aye. Fourth wouldn’t survive that. Rebels or not, putting down the people we saved would break us. This will pass, but we need unity, brother.’

‘Under your command.’

Adras held up a placating hand. ‘Until we’ve assessed the situation in Turas and, Emperor willing, made landfall. Once everyone realises the galaxy hasn’t ended, I’ll gladly defer to your authority. I defer to it now, even. Do you see the wisdom in this course?’

The Chaplain did not answer. He turned and stalked from the cell without another word.

Fourth Company was hurting in a hundred ways. Without direct leadership, without the structure they had known all their lives, they would founder. Already the rumours circulated: regiments turned, fleets vanished, even Chapters pledging to Abaddon’s cause and turning their guns on yesterday’s allies. The Space Marines were strong, true, but that strength could be turned against itself, made brittle.

Men like Bannock were proof of that. Unable to tolerate such a brutal defeat, they cast about for others to blame. They had no protection against loss but honour, and honour was small comfort at best when the enemy was at the door.

They would endure so long as they had belief that their leaders knew what to do. The mortal crew, the Astra Militarum - they were more fragile, more susceptible, but they would follow the example set by the Astartes. They could be reforged, stronger than before. They had seen the foe. They had not run from him until the very ground beneath their feet had been destroyed. From the ruins of Cadia, fierce soldiers would be made, hate burning hot in their hearts and minds. The dead kasr would produce a final crop of kin, and it would be the Despoiler’s doom.

In time. All things in time.

Adras cast a final look at the cell - the chamber that had housed every Captain of Fourth Company, down through the centuries. What had he come looking for? Inspiration? Solace? A hidden data-slate telling him, in small words, exactly what to do?

‘Bridge to Lieutenant Adras,’ the vox whispered in his ear. ‘The Navigator sends his compliments. Detranslation in ten minutes.’

He hadn’t found it, whatever it was. But one more defeat, what was that? Nothing at all.

‘Adras to bridge. Full battle stations. I’m on my way up.’

This was something he could immerse himself in: the calculation, the tactics, the exchange of arms. It was what they had been crafted for, after all, ten thousand years prior. Warriors who would carry the Emperor’s standard to the furthest stars, who would destroy all that threatened humanity’s return to galactic dominance. It was easy to sink into that programming, the hypno-indoctrination, the muscle memory of violence.

But for all Adras had brushed it off, the Chaplain’s words had lodged in his soul. Disappointment. Coward. Failure. Fit only to order about mortals, not the might of the Adeptus Astartes.

Better to be stung by pride than to feel no pain at all.

Adras blink-clicked a contact rune.

‘Bannock,’ he said. ‘I’d value your insight on the bridge.’


	3. Chapter 3

Cadia stands.

That was the message. That was the rallying cry, already being converted to grainy prop-vid and passing through the scattered strata of Imperial survivors. Among the ships fleeing the ruined world, or nestled deep in the belly of an Inquisitorial vessel, perhaps in the armoured heart of the great _Phalanx_ \- someone had captured that last, defiant call. Transformed it. Twisted it to serve far-distant efforts without any thought of the here and now.

The message crawled its way through every deck of the _Pride of Jiaku_. An old hauler, made young again with a coat of paint and a brief but eventful time spent in drydock. An older captain given less than that. Her distant familial connections to a wealthy dynasty had not saved her from a Naval commission.

Had they marked her, instead? A question she had pondered every night before the fall. Now she did not even try to sleep. Sleep meant visions, all the more terrible for being true. A sky covered by flames. A black star falling. The way a planet collapses inwards, like a titanic skull, as it dies.

Winding through it all, those two words: Cadia stands.

The captain, exhausted in body and mind, does not consider the message as she ends a twelve-hour watch. They are the first to arrive in Turas. Sometimes the Warp’s tides are kind. Only an unmanned servitor-buoy greeted them at the Mandeville point. Arcane technological handshakes were exchanged, loyal codes transmitted. There will be a response from Turas Prime eventually. Even with vox-relays, which Turas lacks, the necessary formalities can last mind-numbing hours of call-and-response.

Unless they are dead. Unless they are turned. Unless a Black Legion prowler armada has jumped ahead and lurks in the auspex shadows, waiting to see what follows the lone transport.

A more experienced captain would inform the cargo they carry, but this one is old and tired and used to ferrying things that require no explanation. If she thinks of those they rescued from Cadia at all, her mind is far more occupied with the hold full of pristine battle tanks. They arrived too late to deploy the Alascan First Armour. Such a proud regiment. The first founding of a newly self-sufficient colony. Fitting they should be there to witness the last breaths of one of the Imperium’s oldest.

She finishes an unseeing entry in the ship’s log and passes command to her first officer. Someone else can watch the silent stars for a time. She departs.

Cadia stands. The message has reached the lower decks, the troop quarters, the medicae facilities. It has reached the ears and mouths of those most vulnerable to it. It passes with the speed and strength of a virus. Soon the fever spikes. Soon the murmuring starts. Cadia stands, they whisper, casting untrusting eyes over the Naval crew and Alascan tankers. Cadia stands. So why are their uniforms so clean? Cadia stands. So why does a regiment of armour sit still?

Flights of fancy take on shapes of truth in the absence of information. A counterattack. A rearguard. The planet stabilised. The denial becomes real. The question begs.

If Cadia stands, then why are we running?

The whisper becomes a roar.

* * *

‘Commissar!’

Never run. That was one of the lessons the old black-caps taught, the ones who’d lived long enough to have something useful to pass on. The Emperor’s hand moves swiftly and surely. It does not hasten. It walks, measured and stern, always in control. Especially - the veterans would say without any trace of a smile - when it wasn’t in control at all. Appearance was nine-tenths of the job.

So Catha Clyn did not run, as much as every instinct demanded she did so. She kept her pace even, boots clicking on deck plates, great cloak open to show the bolt pistol riding high on her hip.

She would have felt more comfortable in a full panoply of flak, slinging a breacher shotgun. The cramped quarters of a voidship weren’t a far cry from the underhive sumps she was used to patrolling. All close-in work, where gut feel and quick reflexes were the difference between life and death - with a layer of tempered plating to hedge the bet. But that wasn’t the way things were done. Suiting up in nominally friendly territory would be seen as weakness, or worse, fear.

And there was fear enough on the lower decks. The air stank with it: stale sweat, lho and the oily tang of weapons discharge.

‘Commissar!’ the cry repeated. A squad of armsmen were clustered around a hatchway - one was facing her approach, his face pale. ‘Throne, we’ve got wounded-’

‘Stop.’ Catha’s tone was precise, clipped, as she drew close enough to surreptitiously glance through the open portal. No blood or bodies - yet. The alarm had been raised while there was still time to prevent a bad situation from escalating. ‘Take a breath. Gather your thoughts. I need to know exactly what’s happening.’

The armsman gulped down a breath, though he couldn’t stop trembling. He barely seemed to notice the stun-baton in his shaking hands, holding it for comfort rather than self-defence. ‘The Cadians, sir, they’ve - they’ve gone mad! They say they got a message from home, that there’s a counter-attack, that we’re going the wrong way. We tried to calm em’ down, but they won’t listen. They say we’re traitors, sir! That we’ve turned, or - or that we’re running away!’

‘How many?’ The quick mental maths Catha ran through didn’t seem to pose an insurmountable problem. The _Pride_ had no shuttles that would have survived the orbital storm of fire - they’d only been able to take on survivors who had made it out of the atmosphere under their own power, and most of those had been in poor condition indeed. ‘How belligerent?’

‘They have their rifles still, sir. Never surrendered them on boarding. When the fourth squad tried to get in their barracks, they threatened to shoot. We had to restore order, sir, we… Hanna went in anyway.’ The armsman had the self-awareness to understand what would come of his confession, yet did so anyway. ‘Last I saw they were alive but in a bad way. I ordered the fall-back to hold the junction, but it’s just this mob, sir, and they haven’t made a move out yet.’

There were those who held Catha’s position that would have shot the man, or at least ordered a court-martial following the action. Retreat was not the Imperium’s way, nor was the kind of independent action that would see a supposedly rankless Naval grunt take charge and block off a potential mutiny.

Thankfully, her teachers had leaned more towards Cain and Yarrick rather than Stollman or Kruzer.

‘Good thinking,’ she modulated an approving tone which put colour back in the armsman’s face and earned a quick but grateful glance from his squad members. ‘Bottle them up, take the fire out of their bellies, and they’ll see sense and surrender without further bloodshed.’

‘They’re Guard, and Cadians besides,’ muttered one of the blockade, a woman, her las-pistol searching for targets. ‘They don’t even know how to _spell_ surrender.’

‘Any grey uniforms you saw?’ Catha hadn’t wanted to ask after her own regiment first, but she needed to know. The Alscan First Armour were tankers, not infantry, but they were still trained to fight. If they decided to stand with their brothers and sisters, matters would become extremely unpleasant. ‘With or against?’

‘Not that I saw,’ said the arsman - the de facto leader. ‘Anyone else?’

The woman with the pistol grunted. ‘I saw some Alscans, aye, on the other side of the dining hall. Had their hands up. Guessed they weren’t asking for more slop.’ The woman finally turned to face the Commissar. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and in that moment, Catha understood. The pistol hadn’t been nosing for something to shoot. ‘Didn’t see it happen, we were pulling back, but I know what sound las-rifles make in an enclosed space. Was nothing else for the Cadians to shoot in that room, sir. Alscans probably didn’t like them gunning down us spacers like that. Probably tried to do something about it.’

A moment to digest. Losses were always going to happen. But to the guns of allies… that was a bleak way to begin service to the Throne. ‘Right.’ Don’t let them see how it hurts you. Appearance is everything. ‘So they’re committed. They’ll be using their inter-company vox sets to communicate. I’ll need runners to arms stations with instructions to seal off every barracks.’

‘Ah,’ the leader looked askance. ‘I took the liberty, sir.’

‘And they’ll deploy on your word?’

‘I… preempted your orders, Commissar. I may have used your name.’

Now that was walking on dangerous ground. Catha’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you want my hat, too, armsman?’

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

Someone snickered. Catha didn’t bother to fix them with a glare. The situation was tense, but quick thinking meant that the Navy controlled every access point to critical systems. They could fence in the mutineers, starve them out if needed, talk them down if possible. Cadia had been a shock, one they were all still reeling from, but if the terrifying Commissar could manage a little levity, then the Naval troops would know matters were not out of control.

Even when they were.

‘You,’ Catha singled out the red-eyed woman. ‘Get to the nearest vox. Tell the bridge everything you’ve told me. Recommend a full deployment, but not an assault. So long as we hold the junctions, we force a stalemate. Pray this is just transit madness or delayed shock and they’ll come to their senses. If not, they have to eat, eventually.’

A quick salute and the woman was gone, headed towards the nearest hardpoint and ship-vox. Catha took her place at the hatch, unholstering her bolt pistol. She’d practised with similar weapons, but this one - a graduation gift - she’d never fired.

She would not shirk from her duty. But nor did she wish her first use of the weapon to be against her own men.

The minutes ticked on. Catha didn’t mind. Time was their ally in this fight. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d sat a stakeout, and she had enough experience to know that quiet hours were far better than exciting ones. It was always the first moments of a rebellion that were the most dangerous before fear, exhaustion and hunger began to sap strength and conviction. Every second cooled passions. The chance of someone doing something stupid-

Movement.

Those hard-won reflexes had her up from her crouch while the Naval crew were still registering the figure in torn olive fatigues who had just rounded the corner at a full sprint towards the hatch. Those long nights studying the tactics and armament of the Astra Militarum identified the wiring that connected a series of baggy satchels around the figure’s chest and midsection as that used to wire trench-clearing explosives.

And while the armsmen were opening their mouths to demand a halt, pure, undiluted instinct saw Catha throwing herself to the deck, rolling up small and keeping as much of her body behind the hatch’s coaming as possible.

Because the figure’s thumb was already coming down on the detonator.

‘For the Emperor!’

And the roar engulfed the world as everything turned red then black.

* * *

‘Black and gold.’

Adras leaned forward over the auspex officer’s console to see the imagery for himself. It was, indeed, black and gold - an old model cruiser had run for the far side of the nearest barren world when the _Deliverance_ had thundered into the Turas system, swiftly followed by a shoal of Militarum troop transports.

Not as many as had entered the Warp alongside the Storm Warriors. With luck, they would appear soon. Travelling through the nightmare realm was never a sure thing around the Gate, and the Navigators had struggled enormously to bring them even to this close system.

The first contact in-system had been the _Pride of Jiaku_ , almost immediately ignored in favour of the mystery warship.

‘What’s our thinking?’ Adras queried the officer as they looked for a database match. ‘Black Legion?’

‘No positive identification, lord.’

‘But it’s likely. Throne, how’d they get ahead of us? Is this an ambush?’

From atop the dais where the command throne sat, Chaplain Bannock deigned to comment. ‘There was another Chapter who flies those colours. I observed them at Armageddon.’

‘Loyalists?’ Adras stepped back from the console, climbing the stairs to put him beside his recent - and still - adversary. They both looked forward, the view-screens showing a clear picture of the surviving convoy elements. ‘I’d welcome the assistance.’

‘You do not want what the Marines Malevolent consider ‘assistance’. They are scavengers who will not scruple to pick over our bones if we are hard-pressed. Do not expect aid from them.’

‘Noted.’ Adras scanned the readouts and status reports from the remaining transports. ‘We’ve got contact and confirmation from everybody but the _Pride_. Any trouble?’

The unspoken question was: has a manifestation occurred? Though rare, Gellar field failure exposed a voidship to the raw horror of the untamed Warp. Often, this scoured a ship clean of all life, leaving it floating through endless space until being drawn into the gravity of a planet or sun - or rarer still, becoming ensnared by an erratic Space Hulk.

But there were worse fates. Ones that were not, officially, spoken of. Ships that returned full of fire, screams and mad laughter, sprouting fleshy growths, turning their prows for their fleet-mates, desperate to spread their new master’s glories.

And for that risk, no precaution was too great.

‘Continue hailing,’ Adras ordered, ‘but I want firing solutions on the _Pride_. Contact the other commanders and have them begin to move towards Turas Prime and out of our gunsights.’

The Chaplain grunted. ‘If there is taint, it cannot be allowed to spread.’

‘I won’t sacrifice a vessel on a hunch.’

‘It may endanger all of us.’

‘We’ll wait.’

At her console, the communications officer sat up straight. ‘Sir, I have a transmission from the _Pride_. Heavy interference.’ She frowned. ‘I’m not exactly sure, but I believe they’re reporting… an attack?’

‘Archenemy infiltrators or boarders from the swarm,’ Adras growled. ‘I thought we’d gotten away clean.’

‘It may not be a mortal foe,’ the Chaplain warned. ‘Those from beyond have this effect on technology. We cannot trust this communication.’

‘And we may be letting the Archenemy murder our allies and seize a vessel under our protection.’

‘If I were in command-’

‘You’re not,’ Adras snapped. ‘I am. And I won’t fire until we can confirm what’s happened. If nothing else, the _Pride_ carries an armoured regiment. Those tanks are invaluable for both defence and counterattack.’

‘So we do nothing.’ The sneer behind Bannock’s helm was obvious. ‘This is not leadership. You are unfit-’

Adras was already heading towards the bridge’s exit. ‘Rouse Unta’s command squad. Hanger three.’

‘What?’

‘I’m heading to the _Pride_ to assess the situation. Showing leadership. If it’s as bad as you believe, there won’t be any need to relieve me. Fire if I don’t make contact after boarding. I trust you to make the right decision.’

The Lieutenant was gone before any further complaint could be registered. The bridge crew were professionals - they barely hesitated before continuing their business, organising the procession of transports outside the _Vigilance’s_ fire-lanes and scanning for any further contacts in-system.

Bannock said nothing.

If anybody had the courage to look, they would have seen one black gauntlet throttle the command throne railing as though it were a particularly offensive neck.


End file.
